18 August 2025

MEDIA RELEASE

SUMMARY: The Association of Mineworkers and Construction Union (AMCU) marks the thirteenth commemoration since the Marikana Massacre in 2012. Noting the attempts to divert attention through the National Dialogue, the Union vows it will take forward its programmes through the Labour Party of South Africa a genuine political party alternative.

Thousands of workers, families, and community leaders gathered on 16 August 2025 to mark the thirteenth anniversary of the Marikana Massacre. The commemoration carried the theme: “Your concomitant action betrayed our loyalty! We will never forget the betrayal! They will do it again!”

It has been thirteen long years since the South African state gunned down over 34 mineworkers and injured many others who demanded nothing more than a living wage of R12 500. Thirteen years in which the widows and families have searched for justice and closure, only to be met with silence.

“Thirteen years later, not one commander, not one politician, not one boss has been jailed.

Instead, those who ordered concomitant action were rewarded with the highest offices of the land,” said AMCU President Joseph Mathunjwa in his keynote address.

The finger of history still points at Cyril Ramaphosa, who at 14:58 on 15 August 2012 sent an email calling for concomitant action against striking workers. Thirteen years later, in 2025, concomitant action took a new form – the cynical diversion of the nation’s attention from the Marikana commemoration to the so-called National Dialogue.

“The ruling elite has worked tirelessly to erase Marikana from the conscience of this nation.

They refuse to declare 16 August a national holiday. They host a National Convention on the very day of the commemoration. This is nothing but a deliberate ploy to undermine theworkers’ memory and to desensitise South Africans to the bloodbath of 2012,” Mathunjwa declared.

From the refusal to account, to the refusal to apologise, the state continues to betray the victims, their families, and the working class. The truth remains: Marikana was a massacre carried out in the service of capital.

It was in this climate of betrayal that AMCU’s Special Congress of 5 July 2023 resolved to form the Labour Party of South Africa. This is a party born out of blood and struggle, and led by workers themselves.

“Just as AMCU fought and won the battle for a living wage of R12 500, so will the Labour Party fight to dismantle this corrupt system and build a South Africa for its people — not for the ruling elite,” Mathunjwa said.

In his keynote address on Saturday, Mathunjwa highlighted the following demands as part of the Labour Party’s “concomitant response”:

• Full accountability for those who ordered and carried out the massacre.
• Transformation of the mining sector — workers must own and control the wealth they produce.
• Owners that place mines on care and maintenance due to diminishing super profits must have their mining licenses revoked and given to the communities. We vehemently disapprove of the events in ZAC mine and Thendele mine in KZN.
• The amendment of the Mine Health and Safety Act.
• Radical constitutional reform: power must return to the people, not be trapped in elite deals like the GNU. This includes amending the electoral system, adopting a two-party state with presidential democracy whereby the State President is elected by the people of South Africa.
• Federalism as a political system of governance granting state autonomy that is informed by the unique needs and resources of each state (now provinces).
• Job creation through beneficiation, industrialisation, and taking back mines abandoned by profiteers.
• A justice system that prosecutes the incriminated powerful, not protects them.

“We will not allow the memory of the Marikana Massacre to be erased or swept under the carpet. We will not allow concomitant action to be normalised. The Labour Party stands as the living response of the workers to betrayal. Our blood was spilled for justice, and we willfight in the workplaces, in the streets, and in Parliament until power is returned to the people and this corrupt system is dismantled”, Mathunjwa concluded.

*ENDS*

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